Devil's Food (40 page)

“She’s in California with her sister.”

“Didn’t she just get back from California?”

“Yes.” Ross looked slowly at the detective. “Philippa is more demanding than I am.”

They observed the still life with ferns for a few moments. Ross wanted to ask how O’Keefe’s investigation was going but knew
he’d get no answer; obviously the detective was continuing his research at the funeral. Similarly, O’Keefe wanted to ask how
Emily was doing but knew that Ross would never say anything but “Fine.” So O’Keefe said, “Was Guy a friend of yours?”

“He was more a friend of Emily’s. We saw each other off and on. Tennis, cocktails, culinary events, things like that.”

Ross’s voice was so even, so nonchalant; could it be possible that he suspected nothing of his wife’s affair? “How long had
you known him?”

“About seven years. ”

“Did he ever discuss business or personal affairs with you?”

“Not with me. Maybe with Emily. She always thought of him as a brother.”

Brother! “Did you like him?”

“He was a good man,” Ross said. “Well miss him.”

Odd; he meant it. O’Keefe was about to ask when Emily would return when Ward walked into the parlor. She was wearing what
looked to be a heavy black tablecloth and black knee boots. Had she been wearing a helmet, Darth Vader would have been out
of a job. Ross and O’Keefe watched as she paid her respects to Guy s family, then walked sedately toward the coffin. She paused
long enough to verify that Guy’s soul had left his body, then headed toward a seat on the other side of the aisle. Suddenly
she saw Ross and O’Keefe.

“Hello, Detective,” she said, shaking his hand, sitting in the row ahead of them. Ross she ignored totally. “How’s it going?”

“Fine, thanks.” O’Keefe thought Ward looked remarkably well compared to the last time he had seen her at Diavolina. Maybe
she was even sober; that orangey smell could have been mouthwash or perfume as easily as Grand Marnier. “You were acquainted
with Witten?”

“We worked out at the same gym. Sometimes I ate breakfast at his place.” She nodded toward the coffin. “He doesn’t look too
bad, considering he was in a car crash. Hey, how’s my dishwasher doing?”

“He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

Ward scowled. “You don’t do too well by the victims of random violence, do you.”

“We try our best, Ms. Ward.”

“Try a little harder, will you? Hey, there’s Bud Haskil. Haven’t seen him in years. Excuse me.” She left.

“Do you know who that was?” O’Keefe asked Ross.

“No idea.”

“The famous Ward, manager of Diavolina. I thought it best not to introduce you.”

“Thanks.” Ross glanced coolly across the parlor. Ward was
joshing with two men in suits. “Emily said she was big, but not that big. What was that about a dishwasher?”

“He drowned in the Fenway a few weeks ago. Drank a gutful of grain alcohol and tried to walk on water. Ward thinks that’s
somehow unusual.” O’Keefe’s eyes began to wander. The room was filling with mourners, perhaps murderers. He stood up. “Give
Emily my regards, would you?”

Ross sat stuporously through the service, which was shorter but much more wrenching than Dana’s, since Guy’s friends had truly
loved him. He followed the hearse to that gigantic, incomprehensible hole in the earth. He said good-bye to Guy’s family and
walked back to his car, nodding to O’Keefe, who observed all from the periphery. Ward hung around talking somberly to strangers,
as if this funeral aggrieved her. She glanced once, casually, in Ross’s direction as he pulled away. Driving past a long forest,
Ross pulled into a picnic area. He walked into the woods, found a clearing, and lay down on the dead leaves. Then he sobbed
at the sky because he was totally lost again. He missed Emily and he really missed Dana, who would have listened to his confession,
absolved him, and told him how to proceed. After a long while his tears dried. No one had heard him but the squirrels, and
now he was hungry. Ross peed on a tree and drove back to the office. “I’m here,” he buzzed Marjorie. “Come in when you have
a minute, eh?”

Today she was wearing a white blouse with a slim gray flannel skirt well below her knees. He could barely see four inches
of shin. “Ross, what’s that all over your coat? Leaves?” Marjorie took a few steps forward and started vigorously brushing
them off. “Where have you been? They’re all in your hair, too.”

She was flicking them out when he put an arm behind her waist and pulled her in—ah, there was no consolation like a woman.
He held her tight, smelling her hair, her skin, branded by the indentations her body made on his; perhaps he could absorb
some of her life force as well. But for that he’d need his mouth. Ross hesitated, clairvoyant and terrified for a tiny second.
Then he kissed her. Finally he broke away and sagged into his chair.

Marjorie gently resumed picking little bits of leaf out of his hair. “Rough funeral, eh?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry.” Then he chuckled. “No I’m not.”

Marjorie took a seat opposite his desk. Her face looked young, elfin almost: After all these years, she was finally sure that
he loved her. “Dagmar called,” she said. “Wants to discuss a few more details of her museum with you.”

“Tomorrow.”

“You’ve got to see Billy Murphy this afternoon at two. There’s a staff meeting at four. By the way, when we were cleaning
out Dana’s office, I remember seeing a program from his Architect of the Year banquet in one of the boxes. Would you like
me to find it for you?”

“That would be great.”

She left, in a little rush, as if she were suddenly shy about her rear end in that tight skirt. Ross made some phone calls,
sketched for Dagmar, and went to meet Billy Murphy at a Quincy Market bar. Lunches with the building inspector were anything
but social occasions, as Ross was discovering. He not only had to match Murphy scotch for scotch as the man delivered a two-hour
monologue on current construction in Boston, but then Ross had to sift a mountain of hearsay from innuendo from actual fact.
How the hell had Dana managed that? Fairly drunk, Ross returned to the office just minutes before his weekly staff meeting.
He tried to keep the proceedings civil, make note of every gem from Murphy’s mouth, and keep his eyes off Marjorie, with mixed
success. The meeting ended on time because four of the combatants had tickets to a Red Sox game. Finally, only Ross and Marjorie
were left at the long table.

“I’m still looking for that banquet program,” she said. “There are just two boxes left.”

Ross stared at his memo pad. About fifteen minutes ago, he had stopped writing; now he was trying to decipher what he had
written. His mind was rejecting words in favor of images: Guy under a ton of dirt, Ward dancing on his grave, O’Keefe bursting
into the office with an arrest warrant, Emily shot with a
crossbow.... She really should not have left him alone, tonight of all nights. “Keep looking, then,” he said calmly. “I’ll
wait.”

Ross didn’t wait long. “Found it,” he heard her call from Dana’s office. Marjorie returned to the conference room with a folder.
“Terribly pretentious,” she said, sitting next to him. “What did you want to see here?”

“I really don’t know.” Ross watched her slim fingers open the booklet. “Read it to me. Top to bottom.”

“’Ninety-eighth annual Spring Banquet of the Boston Architectural Society, April twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-three, seven
o’clock, upper ballroom of the Darnell Building. Opening remarks by George Kravitz, Invocation by Harold Morse, Dinner’—oh
look at this ridiculous menu, I don’t have to read that to you—’Remarks by the President of the Traub Theater Restoration
Project, Presentation of Architect of the Year Award, Remarks by Dana Forbes, Closing Remarks by Nat Posner, Dancing and Open
Bar.’” She looked at Ross, who seemed to be sleeping. “Told you it was boring.”

“Do you remember anything about the speeches?”

“They were all too long except for Dana’s. His was funny. Should I read the next page? It’s got board of directors, credits,
patrons, all that.”

“Why not.” Ross listened as Marjorie’s voice rippled over the names of friends, enemies, strangers, the dead: Perhaps life
was just one long bedtime story. He opened his eyes when she read special thanks to Guy Witten Catering. “Let me see that.”

“Right there.” Marjorie pointed. “You know him?”

“I went to his funeral this morning.”

“Oh.” Marjorie perused the rest of the program as Ross went to the window and began studying reds in the sunset. “Guess who
was on the Traub restoration committee,” she said.

Amy Vanderbilt? Fred Flintstone? From the window, Ross shrugged.

“Dagmar Pola.”

“She’s probably on fifty committees like that.”

“It’s an interesting coincidence.”

Maybe Dagmar had gone to the banquet while Joe entertained
in his little loft on Commonwealth Ave. Guy must have been going nuts in the kitchen; what a bad time for Ward’s sister to
have shown up, wanting to see him. She must have been either desperate or extremely sure of herself. “Guess I missed one hell
of a party,” Ross said, turning from the window. He looked across the room at Marjorie. All that rifling through boxes had
pulled her blouse a few inches out of her skirt. Dishevelment suited her. Ross made a small charade of gathering his pad and
pencils from the table and heading for the door. He heard Dana’s voice saying, “Rule number one: Never shit where you eat.”
What a stupid rule!

Suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to him, Ross asked, “Are you free for dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go somewhere, then.” He shuddered a little as he wrapped Marjorie in her coat.

P
hilippa was just stepping out of the bathtub as Emily arrived at her hotel in Santa Monica, It had been a trying day, spent
almost entirely on the telephone with Simon, who was still in the hospital, becoming increasingly irate that Philippa seemed
unwilling to visit him. Unconvinced by her tale of stomach flu, he accused her of ditching him for another agent now that
Choke Hold
was doing so well at the box office. When he started in on breach-of-contract suits, Philippa retired to her bath with a
bottle of champagne, there to contemplate her toes and possibly masturbation. She hadn’t had a man in almost two weeks and
was feeling vaginally congested. At last came the knock on her door.

“Thank God you’re here,” she cried, dragging her sister in. Emily s puffy face looked about as bad as her own. Crying over
Guy Witten, no doubt; Philippa put that unfortunate thought out of her mind. “Long trip, honey?”

“I watched a few movies,” Emily said. Both had had car
crashes. “It took two hours to get here from the airport. Where’d you find this dump?”

“I used to meet Terrence here.” That was Philippa’s second husband, the one whose divorce from his first wife had dragged
on longer than had his marriage to Philippa. “They have good afternoon tea. I’ll order you some.”

“Thanks.” Emily went to the bathroom. “Hey! You’ve got champagne!”

“Help yourself, darling.” Philippa ordered tea for two and another bottle. “How long can you stay?”

“As long as I want.”

“Really? How’d you talk Ross into that?”

“I told him everything.”

“He knows there’s someone out there trying to kill me? Emily, that was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done!” Philippa burst
into the bathroom. “All he’s got to do now is hire a hit man!”

“I think he’s got more pressing things on his mind, to tell the truth.” Emily flushed the toilet. “How’s Simon?”

“Still in the hospital. He’s trying to talk the doctors into letting his plastic surgeon do some quickie rehab work as long
as they won’t let him leave. He is not in a good mood.”

“Did that script ever turn up?”

“You’ve got to be kidding. It’s probably in production already in someone’s basement.” Philippa emptied the last of the champagne
into her glass. “The Czech director has disappeared into thin air. Simon doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or outraged.”

“He should be glad he’s alive.” Emily inspected her sister’s face. “I think you’re ready to go out again. Those bruises could
pass for a fading suntan.”

“You think so? Simon’s got me on three talk shows tomorrow. I’m not sure I should do them.” Philippa waited hopefully for
her sister to volunteer for the opportunity to get shot on national television.

“You’ll be fine. How’s
Choke Hold
doing?”

“Unbelievably well. Don’t ask why. Maybe I’ve become part of the nostalgia craze.”

Their tea and champagne arrived. Noticing Emily slip into a quiet abyss, Philippa jabbered on about movies and rivals, makeup,
diamonds, anything but Guy Witten; she did not want to be in the position of having to comfort Emily for a death she had directly
caused. “How’s Ross?” she asked finally.

“Getting by. He misses Dana, of course.”

Philippa smiled wanly. Lately she had missed Dana herself; he had had one of the world’s great tongues. “What’s that bitch
Ardith doing with herself now?”

“She’s in Europe for a month.”

“Prostrate with grief, no doubt. I take it she dropped that stupid lawsuit.”

“Who knows.” Emily switched from tea to champagne. “I went to New York yesterday to try and find the waitress who served us
at the
Choke Hold
party.”

“Why, Em? All she did was schlepp the tray over.”

Emily frowned; Ross had said more or less the same thing. “Hey! Just trying to help! I’m just an amateur with silly hunches.”
And this whole trip was just an amateurish excuse to miss Guy’s funeral. She stood up. “Maybe I’ll go for a run. Some brilliant
idea might come to me.”

Philippa studied the bubbles in her champagne as her sister changed clothes. “Say Em,” she said finally, “as long as you’re
going out, maybe you could drop in on Simon. His hospital’s only a few miles away. He’s pretty hurt that I haven’t visited
him.”

“What excuse did you give him?”

“Stomach flu. He didn’t buy it.” Philippa gave Emily directions to the hospital. “Just stop in for a few minutes. It would
mean so much to him.”